Nov. 5 (Bloomberg) -- Andy Rooney, the beetle-browed CBS
commentator who pondered the logic of modern life on his “60
Minutes” segment for more than 30 years, died late yesterday in
New York, according to CBS News. He was 92.

CBS News said Rooney died in a New York City hospital of
complications following minor surgery.

Rooney was a prolific newspaper columnist, television
writer and producer. He wrote 15 books, including “Out of My
Mind,” published in 2006. But he was best known for his Sunday
night appearances on the “60 Minutes” news magazine, where he
delivered wry observations from a book-filled office, seated
behind a walnut desk he crafted himself.

“If I’m so average-American,” he said in an August 2010
commentary, “how come that I’ve never heard of most of the
musical groups that millions of other Americans apparently are
listening to? I’ve heard of Sting and the Rolling Stones but
someone sent me Billboard magazine, and I looked at a list of
the top 200 performers, and nobody I know is on that best-seller
list. The singers I know have been replaced by performers like
Justin Bieber, Lady Gaga and Usher. I mean, who?”

Crusty and nostalgic by turn, Rooney struck a chord with
audiences that thwarted management’s occasional efforts to rein
him in.

The show’s Nielsen ratings tumbled 20 percent in 1990 while
Rooney was briefly suspended from the Sunday program after the
Advocate, a Los Angeles-based gay magazine, attributed remarks
to him that disparaged gay and black people.

Triggered Debate

His suspension touched off a national debate about freedom
of speech. CBS ended Rooney’s three-month suspension after three
weeks. For his part, Rooney said he was guilty of what he had
said about gays, and regretted having offended them, but he
denied the racist remarks, noting his efforts to challenge the
segregation of the U.S. Army in the 1940s.

In his final regular appearance on “60 Minutes,” a month
ago on Oct. 2, Rooney said, “I’ve done a lot of complaining
here, but of all the things I’ve complained about, I can’t
complain about my life.” He added: “Writers don’t retire, and
I’ll always be a writer.”

Andrew Aitken Rooney was born on Jan. 14, 1919, in Albany,
New York. He attended Colgate University until after his junior
year, when he was drafted for military service in World War II.

He married his hometown sweetheart, Marguerite Howard, in
1942 and was shipped to England, where he began writing for the
military’s Stars and Stripes newspaper. He flew on a B-17
bombing mission over Germany, followed American troops to
Normandy and was one of the first reporters to visit the
Buchenwald concentration camp. “The dead and dying were still
everywhere,” he recalled in a 2000 book, “My War.”

CBS Writer

In 1949, Rooney joined CBS as a writer for “Arthur
Godfrey’s Talent Scouts.” He later wrote for “The Garry Moore
Show,” which aired from 1958 to 1965, and also for CBS News
broadcasts such as “The Twentieth Century” and “The Morning
Show with Will Rogers Jr.”

From 1962 to 1968, Rooney wrote and produced CBS News
specials narrated by Harry Reasoner. One script, “Black
History: Lost, Stolen or Strayed,” was narrated by comedian
Bill Cosby in 1968 and earned an Emmy -- one of three awarded to
Rooney during his CBS career.

Rooney produced some early segments for Reasoner on “60
Minutes,” which made its debut in 1968. A decade later, he
moved in front of the camera with “A Few Minutes with Andy
Rooney,” which became a regular feature on “60 Minutes”
beginning in September 1978. The following year, he began
writing a newspaper column distributed by Tribune Media
Services.

Rooney often tackled the same subject for TV and print,
tailoring his writing for each medium.

Outspoken on Cuts

Never one to kowtow to authority, Rooney was particularly
outspoken during the cost-cutting regime of the late Laurence A.
Tisch, who was CBS chief executive from 1986 to 1995.

When CBS News surrendered control of “CBS Morning News”
to the entertainment division in 1986, Rooney complained in his
syndicated column that “CBS, which used to stand for the
Columbia Broadcasting System, no longer stands for anything.
They’re just corporate initials now.”

The following year, Rooney refused to work while CBS news
writers were on strike.

He wrote a column complaining that CBS had been harmed by
budget cuts, and later told documentary producer Steven Scheuer
that Tisch telephoned Rooney and called him two names. Of the
two names, only “liar” could be printed by the New York Times
when the story was reported in 2002.

‘Homosexual Unions’

But the biggest firestorm of Rooney’s career was set off by
a 1989 year-end television special, during which he said:
“There was some recognition in 1989 of the fact that many of
the ills which kill us are self-induced. Too much alcohol. Too
much food, drugs, homosexual unions, cigarettes. They’re all
known to lead quite often to premature death.”

Those remarks sparked objections from the Gay and Lesbian
Alliance Against Defamation. Rooney added fuel to the fire by
expounding on his views in a letter that turned up at the
Advocate in Los Angeles. The situation was compounded after a
writer for the Advocate attributed racist comments to Rooney
that he hotly denied.

“I am guilty of what I said about gays, and I deeply
regret having offended them,” Rooney told the Los Angeles
Times. “But on the other charge, I am absolutely innocent. I
never made any remark about blacks having ‘watered down’ their
genes.”

CBS said it was suspending Rooney without pay for three
months, without elaborating on the reasons. Rooney told the Los
Angeles Times that David Burke, then-president of CBS News,
viewed his letter to the Advocate as insubordinate.

Insubordinate to All

“I have pointed out that I have worked for every president
of CBS News there has ever been, and have been insubordinate to
all of them, so that he’s not a special case,” Rooney said.
“He shouldn’t have felt offended.”

CBS was deluged with letters that called for Rooney’s
reinstatement. His supporters included two former CBS News
presidents, Richard A. Salant and Fred W. Friendly, and former
CBS anchor Walter Cronkite.

“It seems to me that you have to judge the whole man,”
Friendly told the New York Times after Rooney contested the
racist comments attributed to him. “If Andy Rooney said he
never said that, I would believe it.”

CBS abruptly ended his suspension after three weeks and
promoted Rooney’s return to “60 Minutes,” where he said he
felt terrible for making “life a little more difficult for
homosexuals” while defending his record on race relations.

Arrested on Bus

Rooney noted that he was arrested for sitting with black
soldiers on a bus in the South in the 1940s, and arrested again
in 1970 while working on a news program about the slayer of
civil rights leader Medgar Evers.

On the night of his return, “60 Minutes” rebounded in the
Nielsen ratings. The show captured 36 percent of viewers who
watched television in the nation’s largest 23 markets.

Rooney and his late wife had four children: son Brian and
daughters Emily, Martha and Ellen.

“It’s a sad day at ‘60 Minutes’ and for everybody here at
CBS News,” Jeff Fager, chairman of CBS News and the executive
producer of “60 Minutes” told CBS News. “It’s hard to imagine
not having Andy around.”

In a 2010 memoir, Rooney wrote: “A writer’s greatest
pleasure is revealing to people things they knew but did not
know they knew. Or did not realize everyone else knew, too. This
produces a warm sense of fellow feeling and is the best a writer
can do.”